Chapter 4: Fallen Angel
Morning came far too soon. Axel was still asleep at 11:00, still sleeping at 11:15, and barely stirring at 11:20. His emerald eyes snapped open exactly at 11:22, and all was quiet. He glanced over at his clock, which read only 10:22. He sighed in relief, but, the thing was, that clock was an hour slow.
"Aww shit!" he swore loudly jumping up out of bed, trying to locate his clothes in the dim lighting. He hurriedly put on his boots and burst out of the room at 11:25, cloak, shirt, and gloves in hand. He walked double-time down the marble hallway pulling on his gloves- not until he has his shirt and unzipped cloak on did he break into a run towards the northern most tower where the auditorium was located, which would take all of five minutes to reach at a run as long as he wasn't held up.
Down the hall, make a left, down the stairs across the room, make a right then a left, down the stairs again, sprint the length of Nothing's Call, more stairs this time going up, left corridor, run down, make a right, dead end.
"Fucker!" Axel growled stopping at a balcony. He had forgotten there were no stairs here and the doors to the auditorium were right there. In order to get to them he would have to be down stairs, which would be a five-minute detour.
Like hell. He was late as it was.
The red haired nobody took a couple steps back to give himself running space- he ran, cleared the balcony and landed thirty feet below, breathing heavy and starting towards the great white doors. They were maybe four times his height as he came up to them and turned the handle. Locked. Turned harder. Nothing.
"Bitch!" Axel screamed, kicking the door, but to no avail, it seemed to have been sealed from the inside. "Fine, I see how it is," he said, eyes ablaze as he summoned a card out of thin air, smacking it on the door. He jumped back as it exploded, bits and pieces of the door flying everywhere.
The smoke and dust settled to reveal a large oval room with throne like chairs high along the walls. There were twenty-six in all (twice as many as back home) - six unoccupied at the moment. In every other chair sat a member of the Twilight Organization according to rank, and in between sat a member from his own. Axel saw that every eye was on him, while an extremely pissed off looking Hymixa was coming strait at him, her cloak covered in white debris like every one else who had been sitting within five seats of the explosion (everyone sitting between Marluxia and Xilot and the door were coated in ash).
"Bitch you broke my door!" she yelled at him.
"Bitch, your door had to die so I could get in. Get over it!" Axel retorted as the sound of a couple members' laughter reverberated off the walls.
"Bitch!"
"Bitch!"
"Bitch!"
"Shut up you little bitches and sit down!" Six yelled, he too covered in ash.
"Six, I will beat your face in if you don't shut it!" Hymixa screamed, silencing him.
"Hymixa, just fix the damn door and shut up." Roxanne said calmly from above them as the laughter died. The green haired one rolled her venomous eyes and pushed Axel aside, stopping to kneel in front of the ruined door. She murmured something in a strange tongue and slammed her gloved hands to the floor. Every bit of ash and debris in the room shimmered before flying at light speed to the doorframe, leaving everyone's cloak as black as ever and the doors completely repaired. Axel was sure to mouth "Bitch" at her once they took their seats directly across the room from each other, just before the raven haired Superior walked in, his midnight blue eyes surveyed the room, counting faces.
"I see you're all here," he began. "Good, good. Now for the reason I summoned you all here this morning- Kingdom Hearts is nearing its completion!" An excited murmur ran through the room at his words. "But, due to this, as predicted, the Heartless are multiplying rapidly, being so attracted to the heart of all worlds. There's both good and bad news- the Heartless have not yet crossed over to the other side and I do not expect them to do so. The bad news is that because of the outbreak, the Keyblade wielder is putting our plans at risk. He has eliminated more than half of the Organization- he must be stopped!"
Axel, who had not truly been listening (he had occupied himself by lighting each finger of his hand ablaze one at a time), looked up at the words "Keyblade wielder" and "stopped."
Ha! As if! The Keyblade wielder can't be stopped!
"Xemnas has requested back up assistance in case things get bad. He's assured me that he has everything under control, but be on the alert that if we are needed we will go. On that note, we will begin training today," Rixushin proclaimed. "Sparring field! Ten minutes! You're dismissed."
"Hi Axel," Demyx called cheerfully once they had left the auditorium. "We get to go spar! Whoo!"
"I see that," Axel replied.
"You don't sound too excited."
Axel rolled his eyes. "Demyx, if you want me to spar with you, why don't you just ask?" he said, annoyed as they made a left that took them to a balcony that overlooked the sparring field, there were actually stairs this time, the same transparent ones that they had seen Rixushin sitting on the night before.
"Yay!" Demyx smiled starting down them. Axel followed.
Gay ass, I swear.
The twenty-one nobodies separated into ten pairs, each partner facing the other on the opposite sides, the Superior at the head.
"After each battle, I want you to rotate clockwise one space. The object of the game- you have ten minutes to defeat your opponent, just don't kill each other. Alternate back and forth between elemental, weaponry, and hand-to-hand combat. Begin!"
Immediately movement filled the room as the ten pairs faced off. Axel gave Demyx a slightly confused look, not sure of what to do.
"Axy! Think fast!" Demyx called, sending a wave of water at him. He held no weapon in his hand- as a matter of fact, none of them did. On instinct Axel superheated himself so that once the water made contact, it evaporated. He threw up a wall of flame that encircled the two; the floor became molten as Demyx's high-pitched screams filled his ears- he was jumping up and down shooting water at the floor to cool it off. Axel smirked darting towards him, shooting fireballs. Demyx couldn't multitask and was too slow to block as the flames hit him strait on, the battle was over before it had a chance to truly begin. The wall of fire dissipated and the floor went back to normal, Demyx nursing a third degree burn on his arm.
With eight minutes left to go, Axel looked around at the other pairs sparring- next to him was Lehixos against Roxanne in a cloud of steam, a pillar of what looked like flame erupted from the mist and Roxanne was thrown to the opposite wall, her long hair slightly damp. To his right, however was Lexaeus and surprisingly Xayra, who appeared to be completely dominating Lexaeus, her black hair billowing behind her as she ran the length of the slab of rock Lexaeus hurled at her, a hyaline quintessence emanated from her and smote him in the chest, Lexaeus fell backwards only to be tossed into the air repeatedly by the same substance rushing up out of the ground. Lexaeus landed with a loud thump face first into the ground once she had finished toying with, his face almost as red as Axel's hair as he dragged himself off to the side of the field. A triumphant smile shone on Xayra's face, a smile that truly suited her in Axel's opinion.
The ten minutes was over sooner than he thought, everyone rotated one space to the left. Demyx waved bye-bye as his place was filled by Roxanne, Axel's was taken by Lexaeus. His new opponent was to be Leoxi, who stood calm, cool, and collected in the opposite side of the field, his arms crossed in a bored manner as his long metallic gray hair gleamed down his back, reflecting his element of steel. Two silver Magnums shone in his hands to complete his silent but deadly appearance.
"Begin!"
The tell-tale whisper of a silencer hissed through the room- Axel looked up to see two bullets coming his way, he dodged them with ease so that they passed him right by.
"Ha! Nice try!" he laughed, Leoxi smiled knowingly just as pain erupted along the side of Axel's face- apparently the bullets had whirled back around and grazed him along the side of his cheek. Either way, it hurt like hell. "Cheater!" Axel growled as his chakrams filled his hands.
"I'm not a cheater. I just know how to play the game," Leoxi said coolly as the bullets whirred back into his guns with a metallic clang. He aimed strait for Axel, bullets screaming towards him in rapid-fire succession. Axel deflected them with a whir of the chakram in his left hand before slinging the other at him, the eight blades spinning dangerously. Leoxi staggered as it sliced his side, but continued to fire off more rounds as the red haired one ran strait for him, swinging his arms around his body in another attack. Axel pounced and pinned him to the ground by his neck, Leoxi fired upward, missed, and accepted defeat.
The next match was versus Vexen. Vexen, the old scientist who never really could fight- all he ever seemed to want to do is play with his experiments and drone on and on about NOTHING. Vexen, Axel's first human kill.
The battle was a no-go. Vexen actually surrendered without making a single move. Axel gave the old man a disgusted look as he leaned against the wall; his eyes fell upon Xayra once again, who was on the other side of the field near where Rixushin stood. She was engaged in a fistfight, which was thoroughly amusing but at the same time so awe inspiring. He allowed himself the pleasure of watching her for the next five minutes until they stopped- neither combatant won or lost; she and Xenami were so matched in skill that they had declared it a draw.
Second element-based battle was against Marluxia. Marluxia looked pure evil as they faced off from either sides of the field, his light brown hair flitted out around his shoulders and his hazel blue eyes filled with rage.
"You traitor, Axel!" he screamed.
"Aww, Luxi's mad. What're you gonna do? Use FLOWERPOWER?" Axel taunted. This apparently set Marluxia over the edge as he charged, blossoms swirling around him.
"Don't you EVER comment on my powers, you dog!" he hissed, scythe in hand- he swung it around him in a deadly whirlwind of pink, Axel leapt out of the way.
"No no, this won't do. It's called NO WEAPONS, dipshit," he said with a smirk.
"SHUT UP!" Marluxia cried still swinging his scythe, looking a bit like the grim reaper.
"Now, now, Marluxia, Axel's right," Rixushin said from behind them. Marluxia's weapon disappeared - he was clearly fuming as he stalked off across the room.
Another rotation to the left and Axel was face to face with Six. He drew his chakrams and waited for Six to summon his weapon, but no such action came.
"How about we make this interesting, Axel. I just can't get enough of hand to hand combat, so put those away and take me on," he suggested. Axel cautiously withdrew his weapons as his eyed Six's clawed hands apprehensively.
"Sure," he said slowly. No sooner than he did Six warped behind him with a slash of claws, ripping Axel's cloak. Axel was engulfed in the black whirlwind of Six's impossible to predict movements, receiving multiple shallow scratches all over his body.
"Six, I'm disappointed with you. I was actually expecting that to hurt more," Axel taunted once he finally succeeded in throwing the demon off him.
"Oh, I'll make it hurt," Six replied, lunging with inhuman speed as he stabbed his black talons strait through Axel's shoulder- Axel gasped clutching his wound, the blood gushing out all over his hand.
"Axel, I'm disappointed with you. I was actually expecting you to be able to stand that," Six said standing over him. Without warning he pressed a palm over Axel's wound causing it to burn white-hot; once he removed it the gash was no more. He sat down next to Axel, pulling on his black bangs. "We get a ten minute break after everyone finishes."
"Yay," Axel said sarcastically. Six frowned at him.
"You're not very nice. What were you and Marluxia yelling about?" he asked. Axel gave him a strange look.
Nosy.
"I'm not nosy, Axel- I already know. I just wanna hear it from you."
"I 'foiled' his plans to throw the Organization," Axel explained, using finger quotes.
"Haha, and how was he planning on doing that? Use flower power?"
"That's exactly what I said!" Axel laughed, glaring at Marluxia swinging around his pink scythe in a battle against Xaldin.
"Yeah, Marluxia was all bragging about how jealous you'd be once you found out he's with Larxene."
Axel raised an eyebrow looking in the direction of the blonde. "I don't give a damn about how shapy Larxene is compared to any woman I've been with, if that's what he's thinking."
"You haven't been with any women, Axel," Six replied, staring off in the opposite direction. He mouthed something to someone before turning back to Axel. "Demyx wants to know if you wanna help us stalk Ray and Mimi."
"Stalk Ray and Mimi?" Axel asked confused. "Sure... but I don't know what you're-"
"Girls. Those two are the only interesting ones. Hy's just an old hag and I'm tired of Roxanne hitting on me."
"Stalk?"
"Axel!" Demyx called excitedly, rushing over to the two sitting against the wall. "Come on! They're getting away!" He pulled Axel to his feet and led him by the arm down the main corridor to Nothing's Call, Six in tow. The long walkway appeared deserted, yet to the left there were shadows making their way towards Crooked Ascension, the sound of footsteps running.
"Idiot! I can walk by myself!" Axel said angrily, yanking his arm out of Demyx's grasp. They hurriedly walked down the stairs and made a left- immediately the lift started, instead of stopping at the same hall Axel had gotten off the night before, it continued on several floors higher to a stair platform- Twilight's View. It was a brightly lit chamber room, maybe half a mile across either way, the walls hallowed out insignias that were windows to other parts of the castle. The platform was suspended in midair, the staircase winding up and around to another corridor. There were many balconies one could look over to the floor hundreds of thousands of feet below. At the sound of laughter the three looked up- overhead was Xayra and Xenami looking down at them with smiles.
"Aaaargh! Come back here!" Six called, warp jumping up to the top of the staircase. A laughing scream and there was Six balancing on top of the balcony, carrying Xayra bridge style.
"Six! Put me down!" she laughed.
"Kay," he said simply before miming dropping her to the two below.
"Don't you dare!"
"Do it! Do it! Do it!" Demyx chanted. Axel rolled his eyes.
"Fucking retards," he muttered just as Xayra screamed again.
"I'm doing it!" Six said laughing, letting go of her- Axel immediately realized that her falling through the air this time was nothing like when she jumped off memory's skyscraper- that was freefalling with style, this was just falling, which couldn't end well. He held out his arms just as she dropped into them; she was lighter than he had expected, her bangs falling into her pretty eyes as she looked up at him with a small smile. Axel felt that odd ass connection as they stayed that way for several moments, unable to take his eyes off of her.
"Ooooooo..." Xenami called, leaning over the balcony, looking completely Naminéish. That simple noise was all it took to snap him back to awareness, tearing his eyes away from Xayra as he set her down on the floor.
"We need to go back now..." Demyx said in a small voice. They all silently agreed and went back to the sparring field and prepared for their separate matches.
